Go to:
http://homepages.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~jayken/hollingsworth/hr/650... for the following explanation.
MEANING OF THE NAME
The two Angle-Saxon words, HOLEGN (or HOLYN, a holly bush or tree) and WORp (or WURDE - pronounced like "worth"- meaning an enclosure or farmstead with a protective wall about it) are said to be the roots which formed the ancient placename HOLYNWORTHE, later HOL- INGWORTH. One or two such places are located north of Manchester, England, in Salford Hundred, another is a modern township in the Parish of Mottram-in-Longdendale, northeast Cheshire, just a few miles to the southeast of Manchester. HOLISURDE (i.e. Hollisworth) of Domesday for Cheshire (c1086) is probably the same place. From this particular place, it is believed that men first took up the name as a sire-name or surname. It is possible that more than one unrelated familiy took up the name from this place, or from the other places in Lancashire. The earliest documented appearance of the word used as a surname, as observed by us, is in a Charter of the Godley family of Cheshire, signed about the time of Magna Carta (c1215) wherin "TOMAS De HOLINEWURTH" was one of the witnesses. The man may have actually been one of the relatives of the Godleys (De Goddeleigh) then resident "in Holynworth" and thus using that appelation in his name. It is difficult to say whether the Hollingsworth, Hollingworth, or Hollinsworth and Hollinworth families were of Anglo-Saxon, Norman, or Welsh derivation. Their Given names seem to indicate they were Norman: Reignould, Lawrence, Cecily, Roberte; so also does the fact that Hugh Lupus, Earl of Chester, a fat Norman, was the landlord of Mottram! The late Capt. Robert De Hollingeworthe of Hollingworth Hall, claimed that an ancient pedigree of his family placed the family at Mottram in 1022 as holders of the Manor. This source has never been confirmed and is thought to be spurious. In the seventeenth century the spelling with medial s: Hollingsworth, began to be used. It seems to derive from a possessive or genitive idea: "Holling's Worth" or, "The Worth of Mr. Hollings". Contrary to popular ideas, Hollingworth is not "the English form" of this name. Both forms arose in England long before emigration to any other country.